Assembly says state budget deal expected today

ALBANY - ALBANY -- State Assembly members plan to give final approval of a state budget deal Thursday in a closed-door conference, two Assembly sources told Newsday.

If they can’t approve the plan, Assembly members still, at this point, plan to go home Thursday as scheduled. They could then return Saturday to finish the state budget so it could begin printing Saturday night. That would allow the budget to be passed by the April 1 deadline without suspending the three days’ public review required by the constitution.

Either way, Assembly members and senators said they are confident a budget will be done before the deadline at midnight Tuesday, March 31.

The Senate’s Republican majority has been pushing back at Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s ethics bill, but all sides are confident a deal can be struck as early as Thursday.

Cuomo wants legislators who have outside jobs as lawyers to reveal their clients. Senate Republicans are considering a counter measure that would reveal only clients they represent who have business before the state.

Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group said that Senate idea would simply matching existing law.

“While the devil is in the details, it is possible that the plan would far fall short of the governor's pledge that New York would have the most stringent ethics requirements in the nation,” Horner said.

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